Persona Non Grata: James the Brother of Jesus - Part 1

[Guest guest]

Dear All,

 

In Chapter 1 of his book 'The Brother of Jesus and the Lost Teachings of

Christianity' Jeffrey Butz examines the nature of Jesus' family and gives an

overview of the evidence for James's relationship to Jesus and James's role in

the early Christian community.

 

Here now, is the first installment.

 

Enjoy,

 

violet

 

 

 

Persona Non Grata: James the Brother of Jesus - Part 1

 

(p.8) " Jesus...came to his hometown...On the Sabbath he began to teach in the

synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, " Where did this man

get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of

power are being done by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary

and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters

here with us? "

 

- The Gospel According to Mark 6:1-3

 

 

Jesus had siblings. This simple, seemingly innocuous statement actually raises a

host of profound questions, the answers to which have startling implications.

Perhaps it is because these questions are so sensitive to some Christians -

indeed, divisive - that the subject of Jesus' brothers and sisters has largely

been ignored both by biblical scholars and by the Christian church. Yet the

evidence of Jesus' siblings is so widespread that there can be no doubt of their

existence. The amount of information that exists on Jesus' brothers,

particularly James, is quite surprising. As we see above, Mark even provides the

names of Jesus' four brothers; nonetheless, in my experience both as a pastor of

a Lutheran church and an instructor of world religions in a public university,

people are almost always incredulous when told that Jesus had brothers and

sisters. This is not something they have usually been taught in church or Sunday

School.

 

(p.9) The recent discovery, in 2002, of an ancient Middle Eastern ossuary (a

burial box) made international headlines because of the startling inscription on

the box, which identified this particular ossuary as once containing the bones

of " James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus. " This find was shocking both to the

academic community and the general public for two reasons. First, if genuine

(and this is still a hotly debated question), the artifact would be the first

archaeological evidence - literally written in stone - of the existence of

Jesus, but even more intriguing to the public was the fact that this burial box

was purported to be that of 'James', whom the New Testament refers to in several

places as the " brother " of Jesus. The many newspaper and magazine articles that

appeared after the announcement of this discovery all gave short shrift to the

ossuary itself and devoted the majority of space to the controversy over whether

Jesus could have had a brother. That is what most fascinated the public.

 

 

From Jacob to James

 

(p.9) We shall not go here into the particulars of the discovery and testing of

the ossuary, which has been amply documented elsewhere; [1] instead, our focus

will be on the person whose bones are claimed to have once been entombed in that

box: the brother of Jesus, most commonly known in church tradition as " James the

Just " (because of his exceeding righteousness) or " James of Jerusalem " (his base

of operations) or, much more rarely, " James the Brother of Jesus. "

 

James's name is derived from one of the great patriarchs of Jewish history -

Jacob. " James " is the English translation of the Greek 'Iakob', which is itself

a translation of the Hebrew 'Ya'akov'. In the English translation of the Greek

New Testament, 'Iakob' is always translated as " Jacob " when referring to Old

Testament figures, and as " James " when referring to Christian figures. This is

interesting because, as we shall see, James represents a bridge between Judaism

and Christianity. The Greek " Jacob " became the English " James " by way of Latin,

in which 'Jacobus' and 'Jacomus' are variations of the same name. The Latin also

explains why in European history the dynasty of King James is referred to as

" Jacobite " or " Jacobean. "

 

'Iakob' was an exceedingly common name in first-century Israel, as evidenced by

the fact that eight different people in the New Testament bear the name. (p.10)

The scholarly consensus is that half of the occurrences of the name in the New

Testament refer to James the son of Zebedee (the brother of John, also referred

to as James the Elder), one of two apostles who bear the name. A third of the

occurrences of the name refer to Jesus' brother, who is, unfortunately, often

confused with the James known as James the Less, but James the Less is correctly

James the son of Alphaeus, the second of the two apostles who bear the name.

That the brother of Jesus has sometimes been called James " the Less " is just one

example of the many slights and indignations he has been forced to bear.

 

It is surprising that such widespread ignorance of Jesus' siblings exists, for,

besides the New Testament itself, there exist quite a number of non-canonical

writings from the earliest days of the church that provide absolutely reliable

evidence that Jesus not only had siblings, but that some (if not all) of his

brothers played significant roles in the leadership of the early church. In

fact, James was considered by many early Christians to be the first " bishop " of

the church, the successor to Jesus following the crucifixion, making James in

essence the first " pope, " not Peter as Catholic tradition has maintained. The

church father Clement of Alexandria in his work 'Hypostases' (Outlines), written

at the beginning of the third century, makes the following rather startling

statement: " After the ascension of the savior, Peter, James [the Son of

Zebedee], and John did not claim pre-eminence because the savior had

specifically honored them, but chose James the Just as Bishop of Jerusalem. " [2]

While Clement's use of the title " bishop " is certainly an anachronism, it is a

term that, as we shall see, does accord well with James's role in the church as

it is described in both the book of Acts, Luke's history of the early church

from the ascension of Jesus to Paul's imprisonment in Rome, and in Paul's letter

to the Galatians, where Paul describes two meetings he had with James and the

other apostles in Jerusalem.

 

The Brother of Jesus (And the Lost Teachings of Christianity)

Chapter 1, Pg. 8-10

Jeffrey J. Butz

Inner Traditions - Rochester, Vermont

ISBN 1-59477-043-3

 

Notes:

 

[1] For the most thorough overview, see Hershel Shanks and Ben Witherington III,

'The Brother of Jesus: The Dramatic Story & Meaning of the First Archaeological

Link to Jesus and His Family' (New York: HarperCollins, 2003). For the latest

updates on the question of the ossuary's authenticity, see recent issues of

'Biblical Archaeology Review'.

 

[2] Clement of Alexandria, 'Hypostases' book six, cited by Eusebius, 'The

History of the Church', trans. and ed. G.A. Williamson (Hammondsworth: Penguin,

1965), 72.